THE WINE O’CLOCK MYTHLotta DannAllen & UnwinREVIEWED BY ELSPETH McLEANLotta Dann’s third book is a timely and well-rounded look at women and alcohol from a New Zealand perspective. In it Dann, best known for her first book about her own drinking problem, the wonderfully titled Mrs D is Going Without, uses five themes to explore the subject. Dann describes the booze industry’s cynical targeting of women by making alcohol drinking seem glamorous, sophisticated, fun, and somehow making women more powerful. She is rightly unsparing in her criticism of the alcohol industry’s view that everything would be fine if only we all knew how to drink moderately. Worst of all, the ‘‘rhetoric around personal responsibility serves to isolate and stigmatise people who are unable to moderate and control their intake’’.

Source: Otago Daily Times September 09, 2020 02:15 UTC